text:
At a meeting of a reputable number of the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, impressed with a proper sense of the justice of the cause which this continent is engaged in, and animated with a generous fervor for supporting the same, it was resolved, that the following be laid before the board of safety:
"We profess liberality of sentiment to all men; with this distinction only, that those who do not deserve it would become wise and seek to deserve it. We hold the pure doctrines of universal liberty of conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to secure that sacred right to others, as well as to defend it for ourselves; for we undertake not to judge of the religious rectitude of tenets, but leave the whole matter to Him who made us.
"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any man for religion's sake; our common relation to others being that of fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single community; and in this line of connection we hold out the right hand of fellowship to all men. But we should conceive ourselves to be unworthy members of the free and independent States of America, were we unconcernedly to see or to suffer any treasonable wound, public or private, directly or indirectly, to be given against the peace and safety of the same. We inquire not into the rank of the offenders, nor into their religious persuasion; we have no business with either, our part being only to find them out and exhibit them to justice.
"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has lately been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had the framers and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to exhort the youth and others of their society, to a patient submission under the present trying visitations, and humbly to wait the event of heaven towards them, they had therein shown a Christian temper, and we had been silent; but the anger and political virulence with which their instructions are given, and the abuse with which they stigmatize all ranks of men not thinking like themselves, leave no doubt on our minds from what spirit their publication proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure cause of truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred import, and play them off as mechanically as if religion consisted only in contrivance. We know of no instance in which the Quakers have been compelled to bear arms, or to do any thing which might strain their conscience; wherefore their advice, 'to withstand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary instructions and ordinances of men,' appear to us a false alarm, and could only be treasonably calculated to gain favor with our enemies, when they are seemingly on the brink of invading this State, or, what is still worse, to weaken the hands of our defence, that their entrance into this city might be made practicable and easy.
"We disclaim all tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders; and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner of treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the two following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous persons in some cases; and, secondly, by only a passionate treatment of them in others. For the future we disown both, and wish to be steady in our proceedings, and serious in our punishments.
"Every State in America has, by the repeated voice of its inhabitants, directed and authorized the Continental Congress to publish a formal Declaration of Independence of, and separation from, the oppressive king and Parliament of Great Britain; and we look on every man as an enemy, who does not in some line or other, give his assistance towards supporting the same; at the same time we consider the offence to be heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when such persons, under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence of this continent as declared by Congress.
"The publishers of the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' have called in a loud manner to their friends and connections, 'to withstand or refuse' obedience to whatever 'instructions or ordinances' may be published, not warranted by (what they call) 'that happy Constitution under which they and others long enjoyed tranquillity and peace.' If this be not treason, we know not what may properly be called by that name.
"To us it is a matter of surprise and astonishment, that men with the word 'peace, peace,' continually on their lips, should be so fond of living under and supporting a government, and at the same time calling it 'happy,' which is never better pleased than when a war- that has filled India with carnage and famine, Africa with slavery, and tampered with Indians and negroes to cut the throats of the freemen of America. We conceive it a disgrace to this State, to harbor or wink at such palpable hypocrisy. But as we seek not to hurt the hair of any man's head, when we can make ourselves safe without, we wish such persons to restore peace to themselves and us, by removing themselves to some part of the king of Great Britain's dominions, as by that means they may live unmolested by us and we by them; for our fixed opinion is, that those who do not deserve a place among us, ought not to have one.
"We conclude with requesting the Council of Safety to take into consideration the paper signed 'John Pemberton,' and if it shall appear to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of a treasonable nature, that they would commit the signer, together with such other persons as they can discover were concerned therein, into custody, until such time as some mode of trial shall ascertain the full degree of their guilt and punishment; in the doing of which, we wish their judges, whoever they may be, to disregard the man, his connections, interest, riches, poverty, or principles of religion, and to attend to the nature of his offence only."
The most cavilling sectarian cannot accuse the foregoing with containing the least ingredient of persecution. The free spirit on which the American cause is founded, disdains to mix with such an impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish together. Had the Quakers minded their religion and their business, they might have lived through this dispute in enviable ease, and none would have molested them. The common phrase with these people is, 'Our principles are peace.' To which may be replied, and your practices are the reverse; for never did the conduct of men oppose their own doctrine more notoriously than the present race of the Quakers. They have artfully changed themselves into a different sort of people to what they used to be, and yet have the address to persuade each other that they are not altered; like antiquated virgins, they see not the havoc deformity has made upon them, but pleasantly mistaking wrinkles for dimples, conceive themselves yet lovely and wonder at the stupid world for not admiring them.
Did no injury arise to the public by this apostacy of the Quakers from themselves, the public would have nothing to do with it; but as both the design and consequences are pointed against a cause in which the whole community are interested, it is therefore no longer a subject confined to the cognizance of the meeting only, but comes, as a matter of criminality, before the authority either of the particular State in which it is acted, or of the continent against which it operates. Every attempt, now, to support the authority of the king and Parliament of Great Britain over America, is treason against every State; therefore it is impossible that any one can pardon or screen from punishment an offender against all.
But to proceed: while the infatuated Tories of this and other States were last spring talking of commissioners, accommodation, making the matter up, and the Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their good king and ministry were glutting themselves with the revenge of reducing America to unconditional submission, and solacing each other with the certainty of conquering it in one campaign. The following quotations are from the parliamentary register of the debate's of the House of Lords, March 5th, 1776:
"The Americans," says Lord Talbot,[1] "have been obstinate, undutiful, and ungovernable from the very beginning, from their first early and infant settlements; and I am every day more and more convinced that this people never will be brought back to their duty, and the subordinate relation they stand in to this country, till reduced to unconditional, effectual submission; no concession on our part, no lenity, no endurance, will have any other effect but that of increasing their insolence."Steward of the king's household.
"The struggle," says Lord Townsend,[2] "is now a struggle for power; the die is cast, and the only point which now remains to be determined is, in what manner the war can be most effectually prosecuted and speedily finished, in order to procure that unconditional submission, which has been so ably stated by the noble Earl with the white staff" (meaning Lord Talbot;) "and I have no reason to doubt that the measures now pursuing will put an end to the war in the course of a single campaign. Should it linger longer, we shall then have reason to expect that some foreign power will interfere, and take advantage of our domestic troubles and civil distractions." of Ireland.
Lord Littleton. "My sentiments are pretty well known. I shall only observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher America rose in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us, but to relinquish America for ever, or finally determine to compel her to acknowledge the legislative authority of this country; and it is the principle of an unconditional submission I would be for maintaining."
Can words be more expressive than these? Surely the Tories will believe the Tory lords! The truth is, they do believe them and know as fully as any Whig on the continent knows, that the king and ministry never had the least design of an accommodation with America, but an absolute, unconditional conquest. And the part which the Tories were to act, was, by downright lying, to endeavor to put the continent off its guard, and to divide and sow discontent in the minds of such Whigs as they might gain an influence over. In short, to keep up a distraction here, that the force sent from England might be able to conquer in "one campaign." They and the ministry were, by a different game, playing into each other's hands. The cry of the Tories in England was, "No reconciliation, no accommodation," in order to obtain the greater military force; while those in America were crying nothing but "reconciliation and accommodation," that the force sent might conquer with the less resistance.
But this "single campaign" is over, and America not conquered. The whole work is yet to do, and the force much less to do it with. Their condition is both despicable and deplorable: out of cash- out of heart, and out of hope. A country furnished with arms and ammunition as America now is, with three millions of inhabitants, and three thousand miles distant from the nearest enemy that can approach her, is able to look and laugh them in the face.
Howe appears to have two objects in view, either to go up the North River, or come to Philadelphia.
By going up the North River, he secures a retreat for his army through Canada, but the ships must return if they return at all, the same way they went; as our army would be in the rear, the safety of their passage down is a doubtful matter. By such a motion he shuts himself from all supplies from Europe, but through Canada, and exposes his army and navy to the danger of perishing. The idea of his cutting off the communication between the eastern and southern states, by means of the North River, is merely visionary. He cannot do it by his shipping; because no ship can lay long at anchor in any river within reach of the shore; a single gun would drive a first rate from such a station. This was fully proved last October at Forts Washington and Lee, where one gun only, on each side of the river, obliged two frigates to cut and be towed off in an hour's time. Neither can he cut it off by his army; because the several posts they must occupy would divide them almost to nothing, and expose them to be picked up by ours like pebbles on a river's bank; but admitting that he could, where is the injury? Because, while his whole force is cantoned out, as sentries over the water, they will be very innocently employed, and the moment they march into the country the communication opens.
The most probable object is Philadelphia, and the reasons are many. Howe's business is to conquer it, and in proportion as he finds himself unable to the task, he will employ his strength to distress women and weak minds, in order to accomplish through their fears what he cannot accomplish by his own force. His coming or attempting to come to Philadelphia is a circumstance that proves his weakness: for no general that felt himself able to take the field and attack his antagonist would think of bringing his army into a city in the summer time; and this mere shifting the scene from place to place, without effecting any thing, has feebleness and cowardice on the face of it, and holds him up in a contemptible light to all who can reason justly and firmly. By several informations from New York, it appears that their army in general, both officers and men, have given up the expectation of conquering America; their eye now is fixed upon the spoil. They suppose Philadelphia to be rich with stores, and as they think to get more by robbing a town than by attacking an army, their movement towards this city is probable. We are not now contending against an army of soldiers, but against a band of thieves, who had rather plunder than fight, and have no other hope of conquest than by cruelty.
They expect to get a mighty booty, and strike another general panic, by making a sudden movement and getting possession of this city; but unless they can march out as well as in, or get the entire command of the river, to remove off their plunder, they may probably be stopped with the stolen goods upon them. They have never yet succeeded wherever they have been opposed, but at Fort Washington. At Charleston their defeat was effectual. At Ticonderoga they ran away. In every skirmish at Kingsbridge and the White Plains they were obliged to retreat, and the instant that our arms were turned upon them in the Jerseys, they turned likewise, and those that turned not were taken.
The necessity of always fitting our internal police to the circumstances of the times we live in, is something so strikingly obvious, that no sufficient objection can be made against it. The safety of all societies depends upon it; and where this point is not attended to, the consequences will either be a general languor or a tumult. The encouragement and protection of the good subjects of any state, and the suppression and punishment of bad ones, are the principal objects for which all authority is instituted, and the line in which it ought to operate. We have in this city a strange variety of men and characters, and the circumstances of the times require that they should be publicly known; it is not the number of Tories that hurt us, so much as the not finding out who they are; men must now take one side or the other, and abide by the consequences: the Quakers, trusting to their short-sighted sagacity, have, most unluckily for them, made their declaration in their last Testimony, and we ought now to take them at their word. They have involuntarily read themselves out of the continental meeting, and cannot hope to be restored to it again but by payment and penitence. Men whose political principles are founded on avarice, are beyond the reach of reason, and the only cure of Toryism of this cast is to tax it. A substantial good drawn from a real evil, is of the same benefit to society, as if drawn from a virtue; and where men have not public spirit to render themselves serviceable, it ought to be the study of government to draw the best use possible from their vices. When the governing passion of any man, or set of men, is once known, the method of managing them is easy; for even misers, whom no public virtue can impress, would become generous, could a heavy tax be laid upon covetousness.
The Tories have endeavored to insure their property with the enemy, by forfeiting their reputation with us; from which may be justly inferred, that their governing passion is avarice. Make them as much afraid of losing on one side as on the other, and you stagger their Toryism; make them more so, and you reclaim them; for their principle is to worship the power which they are most afraid of.
This method of considering men and things together, opens into a large field for speculation, and affords me an opportunity of offering some observations on the state of our currency, so as to make the support of it go hand in hand with the suppression of disaffection and the encouragement of public spirit.
The thing which first presents itself in inspecting the state of the currency, is, that we have too much of it, and that there is a necessity of reducing the quantity, in order to increase the value. Men are daily growing poor by the very means that they take to get rich; for in the same proportion that the prices of all goods on hand are raised, the value of all money laid by is reduced. A simple case will make this clear; let a man have 100 L. in cash, and as many goods on hand as will to-day sell for 20 L.; but not content with the present market price, he raises them to 40 L. and by so doing obliges others, in their own defence, to raise cent. per cent. likewise; in this case it is evident that his hundred pounds laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value; whereas, had the market lowered cent. per cent., his goods would have sold but for ten, but his hundred pounds would have risen in value to two hundred; because it would then purchase as many goods again, or support his family as long again as before. And, strange as it may seem, he is one hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for raising his goods, to what he would have been had he lowered them; because the forty pounds which his goods sold for, is, by the general raise of the market cent. per cent., rendered of no more value than the ten pounds would be had the market fallen in the same proportion; and, consequently, the whole difference of gain or loss is on the difference in value of the hundred pounds laid by, viz. from fifty to two hundred. This rage for raising goods is for several reasons much more the fault of the Tories than the Whigs; and yet the Tories (to their shame and confusion ought they to be told of it) are by far the most noisy and discontented. The greatest part of the Whigs, by being now either in the army or employed in some public service, are buyers only and not sellers, and as this evil has its origin in trade, it cannot be charged on those who are out of it.
But the grievance has now become too general to be remedied by partial methods, and the only effectual cure is to reduce the quantity of money: with half the quantity we should be richer than we are now, because the value of it would be doubled, and consequently our attachment to it increased; for it is not the number of dollars that a man has, but how far they will go, that makes him either rich or poor.
These two points being admitted, viz. that the quantity of money is too great, and that the prices of goods can only be effectually reduced by, reducing the quantity of the money, the next point to be considered is, the method how to reduce it.
The circumstances of the times, as before observed, require that the public characters of all men should now be fully understood, and the only general method of ascertaining it is by an oath or affirmation, renouncing all allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and to support the independence of the United States, as declared by Congress. Let, at the same time, a tax of ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. per annum, to be collected quarterly, be levied on all property. These alternatives, by being perfectly voluntary, will take in all sorts of people. Here is the test; here is the tax. He who takes the former, conscientiously proves his affection to the cause, and binds himself to pay his quota by the best services in his power, and is thereby justly exempt from the latter; and those who choose the latter, pay their quota in money, to be excused from the former, or rather, it is the price paid to us for their supposed, though mistaken, insurance with the enemy.
But this is only a part of the advantage which would arise by knowing the different characters of men. The Whigs stake everything on the issue of their arms, while the Tories, by their disaffection, are sapping and undermining their strength; and, of consequence, the property of the Whigs is the more exposed thereby; and whatever injury their estates may sustain by the movements of the enemy, must either be borne by themselves, who have done everything which has yet been done, or by the Tories, who have not only done nothing, but have, by their disaffection, invited the enemy on.
In the present crisis we ought to know, square by square and house by house, who are in real allegiance with the United Independent States, and who are not. Let but the line be made clear and distinct, and all men will then know what they are to trust to. It would not only be good policy but strict justice, to raise fifty or one hundred thousand pounds, or more, if it is necessary, out of the estates and property of the king of England's votaries, resident in Philadelphia, to be distributed, as a reward to those inhabitants of the city and State, who should turn out and repulse the enemy, should they attempt to march this way; and likewise, to bind the property of all such persons to make good the damages which that of the Whigs might sustain. In the undistinguishable mode of conducting a war, we frequently make reprisals at sea, on the vessels of persons in England, who are friends to our cause compared with the resident Tories among us.
In every former publication of mine, from Common Sense down to the last Crisis, I have generally gone on the charitable supposition, that the Tories were rather a mistaken than a criminal people, and have applied argument after argument, with all the candor and temper which I was capable of, in order to set every part of the case clearly and fairly before them, and if possible to reclaim them from ruin to reason. I have done my duty by them and have now done with that doctrine, taking it for granted, that those who yet hold their disaffection are either a set of avaricious miscreants, who would sacrifice the continent to save themselves, or a banditti of hungry traitors, who are hoping for a division of the spoil. To which may be added, a list of crown or proprietary dependants, who, rather than go without a portion of power, would be content to share it with the devil. Of such men there is no hope; and their obedience will only be according to the danger set before them, and the power that is exercised over them.
A time will shortly arrive, in which, by ascertaining the characters of persons now, we shall be guarded against their mischiefs then; for in proportion as the enemy despair of conquest, they will be trying the arts of seduction and the force of fear by all the mischiefs which they can inflict. But in war we may be certain of these two things, viz. that cruelty in an enemy, and motions made with more than usual parade, are always signs of weakness. He that can conquer, finds his mind too free and pleasant to be brutish; and he that intends to conquer, never makes too much show of his strength.
We now know the enemy we have to do with. While drunk with the certainty of victory, they disdained to be civil; and in proportion as disappointment makes them sober, and their apprehensions of an European war alarm them, they will become cringing and artful; honest they cannot be. But our answer to them, in either condition they may be in, is short and full- "As free and independent States we are willing to make peace with you to-morrow, but we neither can hear nor reply in any other character."
If Britain cannot conquer us, it proves that she is neither able to govern nor protect us, and our particular situation now is such, that any connection with her would be unwisely exchanging a half-defeated enemy for two powerful ones. Europe, by every appearance, is now on the eve, nay, on the morning twilight of a war, and any alliance with George the Third brings France and Spain upon our backs; a separation from him attaches them to our side; therefore, the only road to peace, honor and commerce is Independence.
Written this fourth year of the union, which God preserve.
Philadelphia, April 19, 1777.
1. Steward of the king's household.
2. Formerly General Townsend, at Quebec, and late lord-lieutenant.


text:
An unemployed Italian gunman shot and seriously wounded two policemen Sunday in a square outside the premier's office in Rome, but he "wanted to shoot politicians," Rome prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani said.
Shots rang out in Chigi Square near a busy shopping and strolling area shortly after 11:30 a.m. just as Italy's new government -- Premier Enrico Letta and his new ministers -- were taking their oaths at the Quirinal presidential office, about a half-mile away.
The suspected gunman, dressed in a dark business suit, was immediately grabbed by other police in the square, wrestled to the ground and taken away.
Laviani, who later questioned the alleged assailant, said the man "wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn't reach any, he shot the Carabinieri" police.
Laviani added that the man "confessed everything," but didn't appear mentally unbalanced.
The shooting "was the tragic gesture of an unemployed man," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano also told reporters after briefing Letta and his new Cabinet about the attack.
A woman passing by during the shooting was also slightly injured, Rome's mayor said. It was unclear if she was grazed by a bullet or hurt in the panic sparked by the gunfire.
It was not immediately clear if the shooting outside the Chigi Palace, which houses the premier's office and other government offices, was timed to coincide with the swearing-in ceremony. But tensions have been running high in Italy following inconclusive elections in February that left the country mired in political deadlock amid a deep recession.
The 46-year-old Letta nailed down a coalition deal only a day ago between two bitter political enemies -- his center-left forces and the conservative bloc of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Reporters inside the Chigi Palace press office heard the shots and raced outside. An AP television producer saw the two wounded Carabinieri officers in the square outside the palace. One of them lay on the pavement with blood pouring out of his neck.
Alfano said the alleged gunman -- 49-year-old Luigi Preiti -- wanted to kill himself after the shooting but ran out of bullets. He said six shots were fired.
Security was immediately stepped up near key venues in the Italian capital, but Alfano said authorities were not worried about related attacks.
"The general situation of public order is not causing any worry," he said. "Our initial investigation indicates the incident is due to an isolated gesture, although further investigations are being carried out."
Doctors at Rome's Umberto I Polyclinic said the more seriously injured of the two police officers was a 50-year-old brigadier. They told reporters that a bullet had entered the right side of the officer's neck, damaged his spinal column and was lodged near his shoulder.
The doctors said it wasn't yet known if the spinal column injury had caused any paralysis.
The other victim was a 30-year-old officer who was shot in the leg and had suffered a fracture, hospital officials said.
Preiti was taken to another Rome hospital. News reports said a protective collar was seen around the man's neck.
Italian media reports said the assailant was from southern Calabria and had lived for several years in northern Italy before moving back to Calabria after his marriage fell apart.
Sky TG24 TV quoted the man's brother as saying the alleged attacker had lost his job in a construction firm and was upset over marital problems.
An aide to Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told reporters at the presidential palace that the new Cabinet members were kept briefly inside for security reasons until it was clear there was no immediate danger.
The shooting sparked ugly memories of the 1970s and 1980s in Italy, when domestic terrorism plagued the country during a time of high political tensions between right-wing and left-wing blocs.
The new Cabinet ministers were seen smiling in a group photo as news of the shooting broke and it was apparent they weren't immediately aware of the attack.
"The news arrived after the swearing-in," said Dario Franceschini, one of the new ministers. `'Premier Letta is following the situation."
Metal fencing closes off Chigi Square, which flanks Via del Corso, one of Rome's most popular streets with strollers. The public can cross the square by showing identification, and sometimes people can cross it without being stopped. It was unclear if the assailant had asked permission to enter the square.
Rome was jammed Sunday with tourists and residents enjoying a warm sunny morning on the last day of a four-day weekend.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

subset: commoncrawl


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Thank you, Father Leahy, members of the faculty, students, friends, and distinguished guests. I am deeply honored to be with you today at Boston College to receive the Sesquicentennial Medal, and to celebrate this great university. I confess, I traveled the 5 miles from Cambridge to Chestnut Hill with some trepidation. A Mass for 20,000 at Fenway Park, complete with Fenway Franks, is a hard act to follow.
Nearly fifty years ago Harvard's President Pusey traveled the same 5 miles to celebrate the Boston College Centennial and brought, as he put it, the "discouraging word" that the "common task" our universities share "does not get easier with the passing centuries." This may be even truer now than it was in 1963. We live in a world of information and ideas that circulate with almost instantaneous ease. We know that knowledge is becoming more and more vital to our societies, and that our economic prosperity depends as never before on discoveries born in institutions such as ours. And yet we still rely on universities, not merely to create economic value, but as President Pusey put it, to "build value into our common life."
Your own Reverend Himes observed in his eloquent remarks at Fenway Park that, and I quote him, "Education is the process through which we become more fully human, and also more like God." It is a welcome perspective in a world where the measure of things so often trumps the meaning of things, and the practical, immediate uses of knowledge so often overshadow the larger, more enduring purposes of education. I want today on this great occasion for Boston College to speak about those larger purposes, and the vital role that universities play in defining aspirations and possibilities for the long term.
When the Governor of Massachusetts signed the charter to establish Boston College in April of 1863, it was a bright moment in a dark hour – at the mid-point of an escalating Civil War. So much was at stake – our fundamental understandings of freedom and citizenship, equality and nationhood – and much was uncertain, especially for young Americans. We imagine with effort that frightening spring 150 years ago when on a single Virginia battlefield in May's first week, some 30,000 young men became casualties, nearly as many as the number of students who sought admission last spring to each of the Boston College and Harvard College classes of 2016.
Such drastic upheaval also created a critical moment for higher education. Then, as now, the struggle for freedom and opportunity came with a yearning for education, and Boston was a cauldron of energy and creativity. As Father John McElroy was creating this Jesuit college in the South End for the sons of Irish immigrants, others were working to establish a polytechnic school in the Back Bay called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded to spur advancements in science and technology. And in those same years, a senior member of Congress from Vermont – determined, as he put it, to "promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes" – laid the foundation for America's land grant universities with the Morrill Act of 1862, one of the most transformational pieces of legislation in American history. President Lincoln signed it into law to create the nation's great public universities, dedicated to education in the public service, changing assumptions not only about what education was for, but about who it was for.
And that was just the beginning. A post-war generation of reformers, led by university presidents, including Harvard's Charles William Eliot, launched a movement inspired by the German ideal of the research university. The Johns Hopkins University, founded as a new graduate and professional school in 1876, opened without a college at all, offering a new model for others eager to update American higher education. And Harvard created its graduate programs, designed to advance knowledge along the lines of the emerging disciplines, with their defined and compelling intellectual purposes.
Reformers pushed for a shift away from Latin and Greek and the classical curriculum, a supplanting of traditional moral and spiritual perspectives with the rationalistic tenets of modern science. The result would become the modern university, emphasizing graduate training based not on what President Eliot called "books merely," or the dogma of accepted wisdom, but on research and the empirical and scientific method – what Eliot termed "the seeing eye and … informing fingers."
But where, in all this, would the teaching of character survive? What would happen to those institutions that had molded human beings and taught shared values centered around a core curriculum and, often, a religious faith? At most mid-nineteenth century colleges, the president offered a course in moral philosophy to seniors, a task which at Harvard today survives only in vestigial form in the fleeting moment of the president's annual baccalaureate address.
But the paradigm of the emerging research university challenged the dominance of the moral education of the classical college – the kind of values-based learning that institutions like Boston College held as the cornerstone of an educated life. What place was there for the question: What does it mean to be a human being? A citizen? What did the pursuit of truth have to do, if anything, with serving others? What after all was higher education for?
For many aspiring and idealistic scholars in this era, the spiritual came to lodge in their search for knowledge for its own sake, knowledge apart from its practical or instrumental uses. Especially in what was widely seen to be an increasingly materialistic age, the affirmation of the transcendent purposes of learning came to seem imperative. The great Cardinal Newman captured the dichotomy, opposing what he called "useful knowledge" with the "liberal knowledge" that was valuable, as he put it, "for … its very presence in us … even [without] any direct end."
Were these elements in necessary tension? How could they be joined or reconciled? And how did knowledge, pursued either for its immediate utility or for its own sake, relate to the living of a life?
In Boston, the argument played out between Boston College and Harvard, in a battle of words whose fierceness would have done the Beanpot rivalry proud. By 1899, President Eliot had dismissed what he saw as traditionalist approaches to education, touting instead a new elective system of course selection tailored around individual inclinations and fulfillment. In a forceful rebuttal, the Reverend Timothy Brosnahan, Boston College's president from 1894-98, dismissed the elective system as a travesty that, as he put it, "banishes unity from college education … committing the whole embarrassment to the individual student, who … casts it aside with the ease and grace of youth. … By contrast," he continued, Boston College "undertakes to mould the character of the boy." As one commentator observed, "There is a fight for supremacy … between two great systems of teaching."
President Eliot is regarded as perhaps Harvard's greatest and most transformative president, and the American research university has emerged as a model for higher education around the globe. But Father Brosnahan nevertheless had a point, one that retains its relevance. Many college presidents derided the elective system as "haphazard" and "chaotic." Today, Harvard's recently adopted General Education curriculum, with its detailed requirements and its explicit purpose of relating the arts and sciences to undergraduates' "lives and to the world that they will confront," would seem to nod more to Father Brosnahan than to President Eliot. Father Brosnahan perceived a threat to the unity of truth that undergirded college curricula, a unity that would erode beneath the growing power of science, and, despite the efforts of Eliot and others, yield to what Harvard historian Julie Reuben has called the "marginalization of morality" in early 20th-century higher education. Fact and value would no longer so easily align. Today, colleges and universities continue to explore a perennial question of learning – how to advance both knowledge and character, to simultaneously embrace intellectual and ethical truth, disinterested inquiry and principled commitment.
Before many decades had passed, the debate began to focus more directly not just on what higher learning is for, but on who it is for. For most of its history, higher education did not belong to all of us, or even very many of us. For its first 233 years, Harvard had no black alumni. Women at Harvard were separated into Radcliffe College until the late 20th century. Had I entered Radcliffe, I would not have been permitted in Harvard's undergraduate library. But American colleges and universities slowly began to open higher learning to students from virtually all backgrounds and circumstances, across lines of geography and income, ethnicity and gender. After World War II, the G.I. Bill made elite higher education broadly accessible for the first time, serving more than two million veterans. Minorities and women gradually passed through the gates, until today across U.S. higher education, women receive 57% of all bachelor's degrees. Roughly one-third of the Harvard and Boston College classes of 2016 are minority students.
And now we have come to recognize higher education as the foundation for prosperity and success in a rapidly changing, technology-driven global economy. Education has long been a critical avenue to full participation in our society – the primary driver of social mobility and of the well-being and prosperity of individuals and of nations. This is the case now more than ever. Higher education is becoming almost a prerequisite for economic security – by 2018, an estimated 63% of all American jobs will require post-secondary education or training. Americans with a bachelor's degree earn 84% more over a lifetime than those with a high school diploma – up from 75% more in 1999. And Americans with college degrees are far less likely to be unemployed. According to the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, nearly four out of every five jobs that disappeared in the recession were held by workers with a high school diploma or less.
Yet this leads us to ask once again, and in a new way, who and what is higher education for? The debates of our predecessors can alert us to what is and what has been at stake – to issues that still reverberate at the heart of our institutional purposes. When we ask, as they did, who higher education is for, it is clear we have come a long way since Father McElroy sought to provide opportunities for the sons of Irish immigrants or even since Harvard President James Conant established the Harvard National Scholarships in the middle of the Great Depression. We seek to serve talented students of every race, gender, ethnicity – as well as those from even the most limited financial circumstances. In this realm, our challenge now is to be able to deliver on the promise that education represents and to make sure that it is available and affordable. This may be a difficult goal to achieve, but it is not a difficult one to define.
But the second question: what education is for. This is the quandary – and, in some ways, even a danger. The instrumental necessity for higher education – the hope it offers so many for a materially better life, for social mobility and prosperity – is compelling, especially in a time of economic uncertainty. This is a case that is easy to make; the promise of jobs and economic growth has widespread appeal. But we must not let the clarity and measurability of the economic case for higher education lead us to abandon the more difficult work of explaining – and embracing – higher education's broader purposes. By focusing on education exclusively as an engine of material prosperity, we risk distorting and even undermining all a university should and must be. We cannot let our need to make a living overwhelm our aspiration to lead a life worth living. We must not lose sight of what President Kennedy, speaking at the Boston College centennial, referred to as "the work of the university … the habit of open concern for truth in all its forms."
The Jesuit tradition has been deeply committed to this work, to the principle that an education is not just about knowledge, but also about how to live a life. Boston College has for 150 years sustained this tradition, founded in empathy, outreach, and service. As Reverend Brosnahan argued in his rebuttal to President Eliot, the elective system "might produce experts, but [it] could not develop a man." Boston College graduates are asked to carry forward that larger sense of purpose, in the words of Father Leahy, by "shaping the future … with a sense of calling, with concern for all of the human family."
And yet we remain in danger of imperiling the powers of higher education to accomplish those ends. In the rush to apply knowledge to the world's problems, we lose sight of fundamental questions. We devalue the kinds of inquiry that slowly build the humane perspective – the critical eye, curiosity and skepticism, the habits of the restless mind that yield our deepest understandings. In our need to know the facts, indeed, bombarded by facts, we forget the fact that we are all interpreters, who need not just information, but meaning. In focusing narrowly on the present, we cut ourselves off from the past and the future, blinded to the long view that has always been the special realm of higher learning. How can we create minds capable of innovation if they cannot imagine a world different than the one we inhabit? How can institutions fixated on utility nurture the open spirit of the liberal arts, especially those fields, the arts and the humanities, devoted to questions of interpretation and meaning? How are we to regard the 20% decline in humanities concentrators – what we call majors – at Harvard in the past decade in the context of the urgent need for these disciplines in a 21st-century world? Think of the constant re-assessment of facts required by the field of law, or the scholarly re-imagining of Lucretius or Shakespeare, made new for each generation, or the implications of new science and technology for how we understand what it means to be human.
The scholarship that has served as the beating heart of the research university is exploration based on curiosity. It fosters imagination, the human ability, as J.K. Rowling put it in her 2008 Harvard Commencement address, "to envision that which is not … enabl[ing] us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared."
And scholarship not only requires empathy, it teaches empathy – as a capacity and a skill as well as a virtue. I experience this in my own work as a historian. To hold a letter from the Civil War era in my hands inspires me to imagine myself in a different life; it transports me in time and space, and forms an implicit commentary on my own assumptions. Their mortality is no different from mine; we share a common humanity across 150 years. Yet their ways of living and dying were so very different. What do I understand newly about myself by seeing that so much of what I am might be otherwise? Such meditations lie outside the torrents of Tweets and blogs and instant information. They exist in the domain of slow and painstaking research, of the free and unfettered search for understanding. Without such scholarship, without zones of contemplation, with only prescribed purposes and goals, we will underemphasize the questions that most concern us, our lives, our mysteries. We will gradually amputate that process, as Reverend Himes called it, "through which we become more fully human."
The capacity for interpretation and re-invention lies at the heart of the liberal arts. It is fundamental to the humanities. And it is central as well to much of scientific thought. Curiosity-driven fields illuminate the cosmic past as well as the human past – the quest for the Higgs boson and the origins of the universe or the discovery that there was once water on Mars. In Britain it is often referred to as "blue skies research," exploration for its own sake – without immediate application or any identifiable economic potential. That phrase is derived from the seminal example of British physicist John Tyndall, who in 1869 asked, literally, why the sky is blue. Using a test tube, vapors, and a powerful beam of light, he devised an answer, with no idea that his discovery would also show how light can follow a curve and lead to the invention of the flexible gastroscope and bronchoscope and a host of other advances.
Curiosity in fact often generates serendipity – and turns out to be more useful than was ever intended. Take the case of the two Bell Lab astronomers who, in trying to get rid of what they thought was static in their space-mapping antenna, stumbled onto cosmic background radiation, a key piece of evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe. Or Alexander Fleming, the biologist who discovered penicillin by accident. He called it, "sometimes find[ing] what you are not looking for."
At their best, universities maintain a creative tension, tackling the purposeful and the apparently pointless with equal delight – from the eating habits of the vampire squid to the nature of empire to the technology for optimal vaccine delivery. We must continue to nurture that creative tension. We must value it and encourage it, and assure its place in the structures and modes of academic inquiry and in our understanding of the university's fundamental purposes. Because sometimes the best path to short-term goals is through the unplanned byways of the long-term perspective. We need both. We must remember that in this age of "outcomes" and measured "impact" that the means and processes of learning and of intellectual exploration have importance in themselves.
The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges once said, "We do not read to discover the end. … Reading is felicity." We like results. We appreciate answers. But to paraphrase Borges, we do not learn in order to discover the end. Learning has no end. We perhaps learn most when we come ultimately not to an answer, but to a better question.
Universities are a set of institutions unlike any others in our society. Certainly our budgets must balance, our operations must be efficient, but we are not about the bottom line, not about just the next quarter, not even about who our graduates are the day they leave our walls. Our task is to illuminate the past and shape the future, to define human aspirations for the long term. How can we look past the immediate and the useful, beyond what I have called the "myopic present," to address the larger conundrum of: How shall we best live? Who do I want to be today – and tomorrow? To discover not only the ways in which human civilization plans to get somewhere, but to ask the question, Where does it – and where should it – hope to go?
Just about a month ago now, I stood on the battlefield at Antietam, a participant in a different Sesquicentennial, that of the bloodiest day in American history, a battle that claimed some 6,500 lives. A tragic day, yet a day that transformed the nation, yielding the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and a path toward Union victory and a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That proposition and the closely related desire to expand both personal and national opportunity produced the ferment for education that found one expression here in Boston in the founding of this institution. A young Union soldier named Michael Leary returned home to this city from the war to become a laborer and a junk dealer. But while he was away, serving his nation, the idea of a college for the sons and grandsons of Irish immigrants had become a reality. His two sons James and Henry would attend Boston College and they too would serve, for both became Jesuit priests.
Boston College has opened vistas and possibilities for tens of thousands of individuals like James and Henry Leary. And it has challenged them to think about the good they can do with their education and their lives. Yours is a great university, an institution that in a century and a half has never lost sight of its larger purposes. It is a privilege to celebrate with you that singular achievement and to honor the Jesuit commitment to scholarship, justice, and service. They are all needed today just as urgently as they were 150 years ago.
Thank you so very much.


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Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman living in Ireland, was refused an abortion during a complicated miscarriage at 17 weeks because the fetus — unviable though it was — still had a heartbeat. When abortion was the only recourse to save the mother's life, the doctors refused, telling her and her husband "this is a Catholic country". The abortion was finally performed after the baby died two whole days later, but it was too late for Savita. As a direct result of that delay, she died of septicemia. She would have survived if the pregnancy had been terminated at the first sign of complication. Hell, she could have been saved if doctors had simply prioritized the heartbeat of the viable human being over the unviable one.
People around these parts have vented their frustrations already. Brianne reinforces the fact that atheism intersects reproductive rights (and thus human rights — reproductive freedom is not only a feminist ideal, but a human rights one!). Ophelia lays the blame for the needless death squarely at the feet of Catholicism. Zinnia decries the theocratic dystopian nightmare the country has evidently become. Avicenna wonders why the country is so faithful despite the innumerable Catholic pedophilia and abuse scandals in the country. Dana points out that the Catholics ignored one entity with a heartbeat in favour of another, for no ready reason. But Stephanie nails that reason — the doctors, being good Catholics, let Savita die because she was failing at her one duty: making babies.
I barely have anything I can add to this collective howl of outrage except, maybe, a bitter and jaded sigh. And a request of adherents.
This kind of thing will happen again and again, anywhere that religion has short-circuited people's empathy and anywhere Catholicism in particular has gained a foothold. I know, others have their own pet hated religions, and I'm not saying any of their reasons for disliking their particular religions are invalid, but I just don't personally get the same sense that their participants are self-righteous, self-satisfied fucks with completely broken moral compasses the way I generally do with Catholicism. Maybe it's because I was brought up in it, with northern New Brunswick being so predominantly Roman Catholic, owing to its heavy French Acadian population. Most people tend to put higher priority on things they've personally experienced. So maybe there are truly worse religions. This one still has earned a special place in my loathing.
It's all too easy to blame the religion itself and absolve the lay believers of any responsibility. Catholic adherents ignore the proscriptions against contraception and most consider it morally acceptable and practice safe sex anyway. So these practitioners only serve to inflate the religion's numbers unjustifiably, increasing the status and importance of the leaders who use the Bible to create absolutely reprehensible and inhumane campaigns against contraception and abortion even at great human cost.
If you're still a Catholic, despite all the damage the religion does to your friends and family and fellow practitioners, and despite you not believing in all Catholicism's tenets yourself, then you are part of the problem. It is a rare occasion when I will extend blame for religion's ills to simple believers in the religion, but if you do not act against these travesties of justice perpetrated on your fellow human beings in your God's name, then you are morally bankrupt.
Yes. You. Personally.
Get out. Starve the evil and unholy Catholic church of its believers. Keep believing in your God if you must, but stop supporting a corrupt human enterprise so obviously designed to increase worldwide misery while its top men live in a golden palace — a monument to greed that should offend any God that might exist even while it steals his name.
We'll talk about that whole believing in God thing later. For now, just get the hell out of the self-evidently evil organization pretending to represent your deity. Please. For all our sakes.


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General Information
The Fashion Design Program at West Valley College is a professional, effective training program that will prepare you for an exciting career in the fashion industry.
Our program is designed to meet your needs. Take classes to re-train, update your skills or complete the program with a certificate or degree in Apparel Design or Apparel Production. You can also transfer to universities.
The West Valley College Fashion Design Program is the recognized leader in computer technology training for apparel design and manufacturing. Our fully equipped computer labs provide students with hands-on experience using computer systems identical to those found in the industry. We are the largest educational facility in North America offering instruction using the Gerber Technology (GT) "AccuMark" System for computer-aided patternmaking, grading and marking. This system is used by major manufacturers throughout the world.
Learning the technology currently found in the industry gives West Valley College Fashion Design students a leading edge when entering the changing job market.
The Fashion Design Program offers an affordable alternative to the leading private design institutes. As a public community college, West Valley College offers low cost tuition as well as scholarships and financial aid to qualified students.
Real World
The faculty are working professionals who understand industry requirements and bring realistic expectations to the classroom. The curriculum is updated annually to respond to industry requirements and constant contact is maintained with industry through alumni and advisory committees.


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'Gotham' Series Casts Ben McKenzie as Young Commissioner Gordon
The wait is finally over, Batman fans! Fox's 'Gotham,' the upcoming Batman prequel series, has cast its Commissioner James Gordon, after months of whispers and rumors -- Ben McKenzie, formerly of 'Southland' and 'The O.C.' has been chosen to don the badge and fight crime on the streets of Gotham City in the new series that explores Batman/young Bruce Wayne's origins and the city in which he was raised.
Variety reports that McKenzie has been cast in the leading role as the young version of Gordon in the upcoming series from Fox and Warner Bros. TV. McKenzie is best known to viewers as Ryan Atwood from Fox series 'The O.C.' and more recently starred on the police drama 'Southland.' And Batman fans will be pleased to know that McKenzie actually voiced Batman in the animated 'Year One' film, in which 'Breaking Bad' star Bryan Cranston provided the voice of Gordon, making McKenzie already familiar with the Batman universe.
'Gotham' will serve as an origin story for Commissioner Gordon, and will also feature some familiar Batman villains. Batman fans can also look forward to a young Bruce Wayne being featured, as the show explores the death of his parents and his pre-teen years all the way up until he becomes the iconic hero.
So what do you guys think? Will McKenzie make a great Commissioner Gordon?


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I have been in a cooking mood lately. I blame it on the snow! We have had two major snow storms in the last two weeks and this week we were literally snowed in. The road in front of our home was drifted shut until yesterday late afternoon. So what's a girl to do? This girl cooks!
For breakfast yesterday I made some delicious, light as air cream scones (new recipe- look for a post soon) and wanted to make something yummy to drip all over and out of them. I had frozen raspberries in my freezer so I made a lovely sweet and fruity raspberry sauce. We ate it warm on the scones, and I am using it as a filling for a dessert next week (and upcoming post). This sauce is oh, so easy to make and will turn any dessert into a culinary creation!
Ladled into a sweet jar with a bow and a lovely sentiment, it makes a thoughtful gift too! That is if you don't eat it first! In that case make sure to double the recipe.
1-10 oz. or a little bigger, bag of frozen raspberries or mixed berries
2 TBS corn starch
4 TBS sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
2 TBS raspberry flavored liqueur, optional
Thaw raspberries. In a saucepan add cornstarch, sugar and just enough water to cover the mixture. Stir to disolve. Add lemon juice and raspberries and any juice. Heat till just bubbling. Stir occasionally to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Simmer for 5 minutes and raise heat to gentle boil. Stir until thickened, about 1 minute. Take off heat. Stir in liqueur.
Place sauce in a strainer with a bowl under it and strain out most of the seeds. I like a little bit of seeds in my sauce. Serve immediately or cool in refrigerator. Keep refrigerated.


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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that it's "ridiculous" to think that his weight would preclude him from ever being president.
"That's ridiculous," Christie said in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters published Wednesday. "I mean, that's ridiculous. I don't know what the basis for that is."
Walters conducted the interview as part of her "10 Most Fascinating People of 2012" series. She opened the clip by saying that she was going to tackle "what they call the elephant in the room — his weight," which led to this awkward exchange:
WALTERS: OK, Governor, I feel very uncomfortable asking this question when I'm sitting opposite you. But you are a little overweight.
CHRISTIE: More than a little. Yeah.
WALTERS: Why?
CHRISTIE: If I could figure that out, I'd fix it.
WALTERS: There are people who say you couldn't be president because you're so heavy. What do you say to them?
CHRISTIE: That's ridiculous. I mean, that's ridiculous. I don't know what the basis for that is.
WALTERS: I think they're worried about your health.
CHRISTIE: Well, I've done this job pretty well. I think people watched me for the last number of weeks in Hurricane Sandy, doing 18-hour days. You're getting right back up the next day and still being just as effective in the job, so I don't think that would be a problem.
Christie has already announced that he will run for re-election as governor next year, and polls show that he has a sizeable advantage over the most prominent potential Democratic challenger — Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
Christie is also a leading name on the Republican side for a possible 2016 candidacy for president.


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Luxe Pearl Headband
Rs. 1,475 Rs. 295
A blingy party essential. Bad hair day or good, this embellished headband from Bellofox will always make you standout. This would not only keep your hair in place but also allow you to make the statement and stand out.
Color - Pink, White
Style - Hair Band, Top Knot
Size - Free Size
Weight - 40.3
Material - Fabric, 40.3
Country of Origin - India


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Results (3)
Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS)
Action Against Hunger | ACF International
ACT Alliance
Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP)
AISA ONG Internationale
ALEF - Act for Human Rights
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
Avvocato Michela Cocchi - Studio Legale
Baytna Syria
Buenos Aires City Legislature
Building Love among Religions
Catholic Agency For Overseas Development - CAFOD
CARE International
Caritas Internationalis
Catholic Relief Services
CBM International
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA)
Center for Disaster Preparedness
Christian Aid
CHS Alliance
Committee for ASEAN Youth Cooperation Volunteers
Concern Worldwide
Coordination SUD signatory members
Costa Rica
Council of Europe
Czech Republic
Danish Refugee Council
Deutsche Post DHL Group
Development Initiatives
Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe
Disaster Risk Reduction Network Philippines (DRRNetPhils)
European Interagency Security Forum
European Union
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Finn Church Aid
Foundation Cristosal
Fund for Congolese Women (FFC)
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Geneva Call
Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD)
Geomatics Engineering Society
Clean Cooking Alliance
Global Business Coalition for Education
Global Campaign for Education
Global One
Global Partnership for Education
Good Neighbours International
Humanity & Inclusion
Humanitarian Leadership Academy
International Anti-Corruption Academy
International Association of Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection (PHAP)
International Council of Voluntary Agencies - ICVA
International Development Law Organization (IDLO)
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission
International Labour Organization (ILO)
International Network on Explosive Weapons
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
International Rescue Committee
International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP)
Islamic Relief Worldwide
Japan CSO Coalition for Disaster Risk Reduction (JCC-DRR)
Korea NGO Council for Overseas Development Cooperation (KCOC)
MasterCard International
Mercy Corps
MERCY Malaysia
Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS)
New Zealand
Nigeria Economic Summit Group
No Lost Generation Student Initiative
Norwegian Church Aid
Norwegian Refugee Council
Oak Foundation
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
Organizers of Humanitarian Innovation Forum Japan 2016 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan (MoFA), Japan Platform(JPF), Japan CSO Coalition for DRR (JCC-DRR), Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC), Tohoku Gakuin University)
Overseas Development Institute
Oxfam International
Pacific Islands Development Forum
People's Disaster Risk Reduction Network, Inc. (PDRRN)
Plan International
Qatar Charity
Republic of Korea
RET International
Right To Play
Royal Institute of British Architects
Royal Town Planning Institute
Rumah Zakat
Save the Children
Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF Foundation)
Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
Sovereign Order of Malta
Start Network
Sumitomo Chemical
The Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP)
The Community of Sant'Egidio
The Global Fund
The Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation
The Tent Foundation
The UPS Foundation
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG CAAC)
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN WOMEN)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
UN-HABITAT - United Nations Human Settlements Programme
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
United States Institute of Peace
United States of America
United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Webster University
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
Women's Refugee Commission
World Economic Forum
World Vision International
Anglican Inter Faith Network of the Anglican Communion
Center on International Cooperation
Dorcas Aid International
Food for the Hungry
Global Give Back Circle
Habitat for Humanity International
Haiti Renewal Alliance HRA
HelpAge International
Human Care Syria
Humanity Road
Integritas International Advisors
International Blue Crescent Relief and Development Foundation
Jafra Foundation for Relief and Youth Development
Maggie Program
Humentum UK
Overall Youth Empowerment and Action
Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation
PT. Adiwara Worldwide
ReBootKamp RBK
Secours Islamique France
SONBOLA Group for Education and Development
Telma Foundation
The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH)
The Humanitarian Forum
Union of Syrian Civil Society Organization
World Evangelical Alliance
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Ashanti Perú
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, University of Dhaka
Emmanuel Hospital Association
United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS)
Global Humanitarian Lab
International Relief Foundation
Empathy Action
Global Platform for Syrian Students
International Deaf Emergency
Nomadic Assistance for Peace and Development
Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities
Global Compact Network Malaysia
SMEs for Humanity
Humanitarian Aid International
Malteser International
Action 24
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
Ahmadu Bello University
Al-Khair Foundation
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
Amel Association International
American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA)
American University of Beirut
Anti-Tribalism Movement
Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD)-Legal Aid
Association of Municipalities of Mali (AMM)
Australian National Committee on Refugee Women
ayzh, Inc.
BINAA - Organization for Development
Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation
Commune de Tevragh-Zeina
Dhaka Community Hospital Trust
Faith to Action Network
Feinstein International Center, Tufts University
Forum Bangun Aceh (FBA)
Global Health Policy Portal
Global Star Logistics Co., Ltd (GSL)
GOAL Global
Humanitarian Advisory Group
Humanitarian and Development Consortium (HDC)
IDE Afrique
International Islamic Relief Organization
Istanbul Chamber of Industry
Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization
Keik Okara
Kesh Malek
Kiribati Association of Non-Governmental Organization (KANGO)
Le Forum des Organisations Nationales Humanitaires et de Développement en République Démocratique du Congo (FONAHD RDC)
Local Youth Corner (LOYOC) Cameroon
Muslim Hands
MyShelter Foundation
One World Children's Fund
Organization for Welfare and Development in Action (OWDA)
Pan African Youth Leaders Network - Liberia
Reach Out To Asia (ROTA)
Doz e. V.
Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM)
United Muslim Relief
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Viet Nam Red Cross Society
Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER) - Libya
Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER) - Nepal
Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER) - Somaliland
Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER) - Tajikistan
Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER) - Thailand
Zimbabwe United Nations Association
El Salvador
World Customs Organization
Association des Régions du Mali
Association pour le Développement Intégré du Guidimakha (ADIG)
Norwegian Project Office/Rural Rehabilitation Association for Afghanistan (NPO/RRAA)
Papua New Guinea - National Council of Women
Plateforme des Femmes pour la Paix en Casamance (PFPC)
Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd Foundation for Humanitarian Development
Right and Prosperity
Saahtain Foods, LLC
South Sudan Women with Disability Network
Southern Somalia Peace and Development Organisation (SSPDO)
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, DRC
World Federation of United Nations Associations - Youth Advisory Council
Young Peace Brigades
Youth Leadership Development Foundation
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
East Africa Humanitarian and Private Sector Partnerships Platform
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28. Jun
Peace Direct
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International Alert
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Human Appeal
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Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS / CEDEAO)
Terram Pacis
African Foundation for Development (AFFORD)
Hope for Ebola Orphans Foundation - Sierra Leone
From Street to School
Somali Rehabilitation and Development Association (SORADA)
Verband Deutsch-Syrischer Hilfsvereine e.V.
The Association of Sierra Leone Healthcare Professionals Abroad (TOSHPA)
Organization for Rehabilitation of Somalia (OFROSOM)
Health Works
YIDA (Youth Initiative for Developing in Africa)
Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health
Kiwanis International, District Italy - San Marino
1 - Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
1 - Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
1A - Demonstrate timely, coherent and decisive political leadership
2 - Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
2- Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
2A - Respect and protect civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of hostilities
2B - Ensure full access to and protection of the humanitarian and medical missions
2D - Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability
2E - Uphold the rules: a global campaign to affirm the norms that safeguard humanity
3 - Leave No One Behind
3A - Reduce and address displacement
3C - End statelessness in the next decade
3D - Empower and protect women and girls
3E - Eliminate gaps in education for children, adolescents and young people
3F - Enable adolescents and young people to be agents of positive transformation
4 - Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
4- Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
4A - Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems
4B - Anticipate, do not wait, for crises
4C - Deliver collective outcomes: transcend humanitarian-development divides
5 - Invest in Humanity
Clean Cooking Alliance Other | Global
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves commits to provide technical guidance, training, and support to humanitarian agencies to help mainstream cleaner and more efficient cookstoves and fuels into non-food item programming and distributions in accordance with The Sphere Project Handbook Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response (NFI Standard 4). Through access to cleaner and more efficient cooking technologies and fuel, it aims to reduce firewood use and improve th...
Clean Cooking Alliance Other | Global
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves commits to work with humanitarian agencies to innovate on technology and approaches to increasing access to household cooking energy. The majority of people in humanitarian settings use traditional biomass (primarily firewood) for cooking, which often leads to higher rates of respiratory disease, safety risks for women and girls, and deforestation. As a technology and fuel neutral public-private partnership, it commits to help ...
Clean Cooking Alliance Other | Global
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves commits to working with humanitarian agencies to investigate the linkages between sexual and gender-based violence and energy access. It commits to conduct research on the protection impacts that adoption of improved cookstoves and fuels can have for crisis-affected women and girls, and to advocate for better access to fuel and household energy to ensure better health, safety, livelihoods, and food security.


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The 66ers have changed utilitymen as the Angels released Redlands East Valley High product Trevor Hairgrove, and replaced him with Chance Ross. Hairgrove, who batted .194 in 51 games for the Sixers, was given his release on Monday, when the team returned from a road trip to Visalia. Hairgrove was 2 for 4 with a double in his final Sixers game.
Ross had spent time with the Sixers in May, when Hairgrove had a temporary assignment with Double-A Arkansas. With the Sixers, Ross was 7 for 29 (.241) with one home run and three RBIs. Most recently, he was with low Single-A Burlington, where he batted .250 with three home runs and 17 RBIs in 40 games. He also played one game for Triple-A Salt Lake in May.
In other news, another Redlands East Valley product, Tommy Hanson, is scheduled to make a rehabilitation start for the Sixers at home at San Manuel Stadium on Thursday vs. Lancaster.


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But there are many other things to consider. It's really not that easy, is it? Unconfirmed or not, if there is even an oh-so-slight possibility of a correlation between height and intelligence, wouldn't it be better if the kid was tall? On the other hand, intelligence doesn't necessarily make happy, does it? Neither does it guarantee wealth. But you also don't want to end up asking your daughter If You're So Dumb, Why Aren't You Rich?
And then there is the unavoidable question of boy or girl. In a progressive society as ours, we of course wouldn't fall for the prejudices of our ancestors who thought a man more worthy than only his rib. No, we would rely on what research says, and who wouldn't want a pleasantly smiling baby? So you might want to take into account that "As Infants, Girls Appear More Emotionally Stable than Boys: Boys were more likely to cry and fuss and to turn, twist [...] They were really just trying to get attention". (I couldn't find a study that says at which age this behaviour stops.) Anyway, if you still want a boy, make sure his ring finger isn't too long.
Gee, it's getting really complicated with the design, isn't it? And it's getting more complicated the more we think we know about humans. Wasn't that nice in those days when we could just have sex? *sigh* But nowadays, you know, we just want the best for the kid.
Besides all these important points, there's the question of looks. Yah sure, we all know good looks don't matter, it's the inner value that counts, blahblah. But it can't harm if the kid is tall, and blond, and has a perfect nose, can it? So, honestly, if you could change anything about your looks, would you?
Just among the two of us, I for my part would really like to be some inches taller. I'm not much of a designer babe, but it's mostly Italian and French women's clothes that actually come in sizes I can wear. Such, the outcome of my shopping trips is either unnecessarily expensive or unnecessarily unfashionable.
Anyway, before I start complaining about this fuzzy hair that runs in the family, consider for a moment a world in which everybody could change arbitrarily the way he or she looks. Customize your hair and skin color, heights, bra-size, whatever. Don't like your toes? Your butt? That belly fat? Blink it away (who needs toes anyway). Okay, done? What would we have then?
To begin with we'd have a lot of beautiful people that fit into designer clothes, and who change their looks according the the recent fashion. Now lets see where this gets us. Well, our perception of beauty has grown with evolution. Characteristics we prefer most often have a biological background, and are linked to health, fertility, intelligence. The subtleties however change over time, with culture and tradition. Interestingly, they change rather fast, that is within only a couple of generations. E.g. I'd guess most Kate's from today would find the probable status of Leopold's teeth utterly repelling, and I wouldn't touch a guy with a wig. Even more interesting is how attractive we consider body fat or a tan (rspt. absence thereof), ornamental extensions or various kinds of creative self-mutilation.
Humans differ from other species mostly through the amount of time they spend thinking about something else than survival. A considerable fraction of that time is spend thinking about themselves, and about what others think about them (one can iterate that some more times). So we've used our big brains to form a society that provides possibilities to sneak around what we consider evolutionary disadvantages. The (logical?) continuation being to directly influence the 'fitness' of our genes.
The pre-stage to this fitness-enhancement already exists: we bleach our teeth to a 'healthy white', shampoo ourselves sexy, remove unwanted hair, get breast implants, take hormones for the fatter muscles, and pills for softer skin (you find the links in your junk mail folder).
And we hear people proclaiming they do it for themselves because it makes them they feel better. Sadly, even after you subtract self-deception, I think to a certain degree this might actually be true. It makes us feel better if we do what we think is the best to make ourselves loved - whether or not it works on the long run:
- Breast implants linked to suicide risk
"Women who receive implants for breast enhancement are three times more likely to commit suicide, according to a new report that offered a sobering view of an increasingly popular surgery. Deaths related to mental disorders, including alcohol or drug dependence, also were three times higher among women who had the cosmetic procedure, researchers said. The report in the Annals of Plastic Surgery's August issue was the most recent to detect a higher suicide rate among women who had their breasts enlarged, providing a gloomy counterpoint to studies that showed women felt better about themselves after getting implants. Though the study did not look at the reasons behind the suicides, senior author Joseph McLaughlin, a professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said he believed that many had psychological problems before getting implants and that their conditions did not improve afterward."
However, once we've outlived our evolutionary programme that suggests a link between the appearances that are currently considered 'beautiful' and healthy spouses, these labels of attractiveness are destined to loose their appeal - or is there an universal kind of beauty that will survive? Can we rely on 'beautiful' tomatoes to be healthy, and harmful things to smell nasty?
Extrapolate that to the next generation and to other criteria than looks (do we really know what intelligence is?). If you design your 21st century boy according to your best understanding of optimal fitness you might just go completely wrong. Our knowledge has been overthrown repeatedly during the evolution of mankind, and there's no reason to believe our generation in exceptional in this regard.
Now you are faced with a situation where you will need to predict where evolution goes, so your spouse fits in optimally - and that prediction is affected by how much we believe in our prediction. Good thing we have such big brains to intelligently design our babies, eh?
- "If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor"
Besides spending time on thinking about ourselves, another factor that seems to be characteristic to mankind is the arrogance that came with intelligence. The believe that we are capable to improve within a decade or two what nature has worked on for millions of years, and the conviction that we will be able to cope with all potential trouble we cause. It seems nature favors optimists, so we are loosing inhibitions to cause problems because we're sure we can solve them in time. I'm not against genetic engineering - it surely has a vast number of potential benefits. I'm just pointing out that if applied in abundance, there is the probability we kick off a boulder rolling downhills in our back, and we'll have to spend our last breath running ever faster, away from the spirits that we called.
But let us just for a moment humor the idea that we design away many of the links between beauty and fitness that evolution has left us with. The interesting question is then, if all our developed criteria for 'beauty' fail - what would they be superseded by? And what would that mean for our scientific endeavors?
- "How many leading theoretical physicists were once insecure, small, pimply boys who got their revenge besting the jocks (who got the girls) in the one place they could—math class?"
Not to mention those of us who had to endure the insecurity of the small, pimply boys (sorry, couldn't resist. This sentence is definitely a highlight of the book). Anyway, what would a world without all the small, pimply boys look like? More beautiful? More boring?
Our perception of beauty is strongly linked to us being human. It has been formed through millions of years of evolution. Is there any reason to expect what we consider 'beautiful' is of cosmic significance? I there any reason to expect that us favouring symmetric patterns is linked to a fundamental feature of nature's laws?
Some while ago I sat in a seminar on cosmic strings, and I saw an animation about structure formation within that scenario. My immediate reaction was disgust - for the simple reason that I was reminded of a pile of crawling worms. I'm really sorry about it, but I'd call this utterly ugly, and I'd see a chance this might consciously or unconsciously influence my decisions to work on a topic. If you think this is totally nuts, then what makes you think other people's 'GUT-feeling', their intuitive liking or disliking, is more reliable? How many people work in astrophysics because they find the Hubble images beautiful? How many people are discouraged from becoming scientists because textbooks are 'ugly' (or the boys are insecure and pimply). And does this affect progress in research?
But more seriously: These worms really made me think. Are we too caught up in our human prejudices for beauty? Can we understand how the universe works without abandoning the limitations of being human? And can we consciously do that?
- "One always overcompensates for disabilities. I'm thinking of having my entire body surgically removed."
See also: The Beauty of it all
Since I'm tired of accusations made by people who didn't read what I wrote, or were not able to understand it, here's what I said in a nutshell.
1) Our perception of beauty has developed with evolution. What reason do we have to believe it is good guidance to understand the fundamental laws of nature?
2) If we aim to intelligently design the next generation, we should be aware that we are limited by our own intelligence. Do we want to pass that on?
What I've not said is
3) All theoretical physicists were once insecure, small, pimply boys, and that's why they understand the universe


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Since Jimmy Haslam took over the Cleveland Browns, he has made it clear that NFL legend Jim Brown would have a role in the organization. On Wednesday, that move will be finalized and announced.
ESPN Cleveland's Tony Grossi reported Tuesday morning that Brown, 77, will be introduced in a new role with the organization. Brown had a rocky relationship with former owner Randy Lerner, especially after ex-team president Mike Holmgren took over. It doesn't sound like Brown's new job under Haslam's ownership will be a full-time role.
Not only is Brown the greatest player in Browns history, he's arguably the greatest player in NFL history. He also was an outspoken social leader and cultural icon in a way that's almost hard to imagine with today's superstar athletes. (Not to mention the subject of a fascinating, underrated book.)
Brown and the Browns just go together. It's good to see him back in the fold, just in time for next year's 50-year reunion celebration of the team's last championship.
UPDATE: The Browns will hold a news conference at 10:45 a.m. ET Wednesday at FirstEnergy Stadium to introduce Brown in his new role.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.


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Northrop Grumman Corporation will highlight its industry-leading range of capabilities in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) including airborne early warning and control systems for maritime reconnaissance and unmanned aerial vehicles, at the Aero India 2013 exhibition and air show.
Aero India, organised by the Defence Exhibition Organisation, takes place at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, India, Feb. 6-10. The Northrop Grumman exhibit is at stand number E1.14 in exhibition hall E.
"ISR capability is critical to effective homeland security and our leadership in multiple-domain ISR strongly positions Northrop Grumman to help create solutions for India's defence modernisation," said Mary Petryszyn, vice president, International, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "We are excited to offer our core capabilities to advancing Indian naval, military and homeland security priorities."
The Northrop Grumman exhibit will showcase the company's world-leading capabilities in airborne early warning and control including the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.
The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye programme couples a newly designed electronically scanned radar with a matching suite of sensors, avionics, processors, software and displays to provide the most technologically advanced command and control capability available worldwide. The AN/APY-9 radar, with a two-generation leap in capability, is the backbone of this aircraft and provides greater flexibility and significantly improved detection and tracking over all terrains. To date, Northrop Grumman has delivered nine E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft to the U.S. Navy. The programme completed Initial Operational Test and Evaluation in 2012 and Initial Operational Capability in the U.S. Navy fleet is on schedule for 2015.
An E-2D Advanced Hawkeye crew workstation and flyable cockpit simulator will be included on the exhibit stand to demonstrate the benefits of the E-2D for military and civil applications. India is among the first countries for which the Advanced Hawkeye capability has been approved by the U.S. government.
The company's airborne surveillance capabilities will be highlighted with the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft and the lighter-than-air Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV).
Triton is a maritime version of the combat-proven Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system. Developed for the U.S. Navy, Triton can fly missions for 24 hours at altitudes more than 10 miles, allowing the system to cover vast areas of ocean and coastal regions. The Navy developed its future concept for maritime patrol using Triton in conjunction with the P-8 Poseidon, a manned surveillance platform that has also been purchased by the Indian Navy. Northrop Grumman produces the AN/ALQ-240(V)1 Electronic Support Measures system, the early warning self-protection system, and the embedded global positioning and inertial navigation system for the P-8A.
Northrop Grumman is developing the LEMV long-endurance hybrid airship system for the U.S. Army. This system is designed to be optionally manned, providing the flexibility to operate with or without a crew onboard and offers persistent surveillance with reconfigurable payloads to meet emerging multimission needs. The first fight of the LEMV was successfully completed in August 2012.


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Remaking Singapore
Thai Ker Liu is a celebrated architect and planner from Singapore. In a recent interview with Indian news site Livemint, Liu said, "Every city needs a plan." For large cities--of which Asia has many--he notes that "the skill of putting roads together and putting industries in the right place becomes quite overwhelming."
Compared to megacities of 20-30 million people, Singapore's population of 5.3 million would seem relatively manageable. But the city-state has faced many unique urban planning problems since World War II. Japanese occupation during the war had destroyed Singapore's civilian architecture and caused a severe housing shortage during the war and after. Unsanitary, overcrowded squatter settlements were rife and only 9% of Singaporeans lived in government-built homes.
Singapore's Housing and Development Board (HDB) was established in 1960 to address this problem. During Liu's 20-year career with the Board (including ten years as CEO), he helped clean up urban slums and built low-cost housing for millions of Singaporeans. Liu helped build over a half-million apartment units grouped in self-sustaining towns, each complete with schools, hospitals, parks, and other public services. Today, Liu's legacy stands and 82% of Singaporeans live in HDB units.
Asia Society will host Thai Ker Liu for events in San Francisco on May 28 and Los Angeles on May 29. The events mark the official launch a new Asia Society/Urban Land Institute report, Tomorrow's City Today, which showcases ideas and concepts presented at the Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative (PCSI) Annual Forum held in Hong Kong in February 2013. In the lead up to his visit to California, Asia Society asked Liu about his decades-long experience as an urban planner.
What inspired you to devote so much of your professional career to public housing and the Housing and Development Board of Singapore? What was one of the most challenging problems you worked to solve in that position?
In 1969, I left New York City and returned to Singapore to join the Housing and Development Board with the desire to help build the newly independent Republic of Singapore. I soon realized there were enormous challenges facing Singapore in those early days. For example: how to plan a highly self-sufficient new town, how to create meaningful communities beyond bricks and mortar, how to design and build good architecture on very low budgets, how to upgrade construction techniques to world standards, and so on. These were exciting times. Together with my colleagues, we soldiered on. My 20 years in HDB thus went by very quickly, until the government posted me out to become the Chief Planner.
What is one of the biggest challenges facing Singapore's urban landscape today and how do think it should be addressed?
In the last five decades Singapore has done well in its urbanization effort. Today our environment is sustainable, our infrastructure works reliably, traffic flows, and the city is green. In addition there is no pollution, no homeless, no squatters, no ghettos, and no ethnic enclaves. However, success brings new problems, such as the very rapid population growth due to a large number of migrants from other countries to help us develop our burgeoning economy. The new challenge we face is to plan for a much larger population at higher density to accommodate the anticipated future population growth on our tiny island while maintaining a quality environment and high liveability. It is a tall order. However, given the experience accumulated in the recent past, I believe that these apparently conflicting goals can be achieved, albeit with a lot of hard work.
Which Asian cities or city plans can sustainable cities professionals look to as a model? What makes them such great examples of sustainable design?
In term of satisfying basic human needs, such as convenience and comfort, there are quite a number of cities in Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea that have done well. However, if one sets the goal higher to identify a city with high livability, convenience, comfort, safety and economic prosperity, then Singapore stands out very well among them.
For more information about PCSI, please visit AsiaSociety.org/PCSI.


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The opportunity to rewrite history waits for you in this epic, sprawling struggle for sovereignty, dominance and riches. Choose one of over 100 kingdoms and play through the Early, High, and Late periods of the Middle Ages during one of Europe's most turbulent and fascinating times. Use any number of methods to achieve your goals and impose your will on others, including trade, diplomacy, subterfuge or brute force. Through words or steel, lead your nation to victory and make your mark on history. With numerous allies and foes to contend with and an entire continent to conquer, the path to ultimate domination is no simple feat. It takes the wisdom, strength and courage of a leader to weather the trials of history: do you have it in you?
Enjoy Knights of Honor and many other great games on Desura.


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Modern Language Association Debate Features Anti-Israel Slurs
Amid debate featuring anti-Israel slurs, the full Modern Language Association membership voted on a resolution singling out Israel for denying academics entry to the West Bank.
At least 10 percent of the full MLA membership of 30,000 was required to participate in Sunday's vote to make it official.
The results have not been released to the public.
A number of resolution proponents criticized "Zionist attack dogs" and "the Zionist lobby," which "railroads its way through Congress, universities and civil society," according to some of the debate published on Pastebin.com. The language was leaked on an internal MLA website.
"I am pleased to see the tactfulness of the Palestinian resolution, as I'm tired of Zionists constantly carping at those who support Palestinian rights … such as this Jewish American," wrote Richard Pressman, a communications professor at St. Mary's University in Texas.
The full membership was voting on a resolution passed in January by the MLA's delegate assembly. The 60-53 vote approved a measure calling on the U.S. State Department to "contest Israel's denials of entry to the West Bank by U. S. academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities."
Resolution opponents noted that countries with abysmal records on human rights and academic freedom were not singled out for condemnation like Israel.
"This resolution rightly targets only Israel given the humongous influence that Jewish scholars have in the decision making process of Academia in general," wrote Alessio Lerro, an adjunct assistant professor of comparative literature at Temple University.
Lerro in a Facebook post on Holocaust Remembrance Day questioned the number of Jews who died in the Shoah, sparking accusations of Holocaust denial.
"6 million? mh…. we all know (or should know) that the counting of Jews is a bit controversial," Lerro said in the post, which has since been deleted. "This said, without the death toll of The USSR, we would all speak German now."